24 July 1997 Edition

The new opportunity for peace presented by the IRA's restoration of its cessation on 21 July must be seized and the peace process must be rebuilt on firm foundations. It took much courage for the IRA to declare this cessation and that courage has been widely recognised. Free article

There were no surprises on Wednesday at Stormont when the DUP, UUP and Robert McCartney voted against the London and Dublin governments decommissioning proposals. Apart from the vote on the decommissioning document there was the rejection of 53 amendments to the proposals brought by the unionist parties. The amendments also failed to win enough support from the other participants. The UDP and PUP abstained on the votes. Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin who was in Stormont as part of the party delegation summed up the days events saying ``People are trying to apply a veto to the peace process''. Free article

A HIGH POWERED DELEGATION of American businessmen and Irish Voice publisher Niall O'Dowd met with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness MP for Mid-Ulster in West Belfast on Tuesday 22 July. Free article

Sinn Féin Shantallow Councillor Tony Hasson has criticised the activity of the RUC and British Army, whom he accused of harassing nationalist children in the area. The incident happened on Monday 21 July and was, he said ``a typical military response to the IRA's restoration of the 1994 cessation''. Free article

Clonakilty Sinn Fein Councillor Cionnaith O Suilleabhain has questioned the motives of the Garda Siochana in the wake of a house search of a party supporter in the town on Saturday 19 July. The councillor accused them of ``harassment and attempted intimidation of a family whose only crime in the eyes of the gardai is that they support Sinn Féin, and this on the day the IRA announced its cessation''. Free article

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